(the late) Peace PilgrimMost hard-cord of all of us! She lived nearly 30 years without money, wandering North America with nothing but the clothes she wore & a few items in her pockets until she died at age 79!

elf PavlikGave up money a couple years ago on the European continent (he claims no nationality or state I.D.) and has been bringing us moneyless folks together into a cohesive movement.

Tomi Astikainenfrom Finland. He gave up money a couple years ago and has been traveling internationally since. He is writing an online book for free!

Adinproving "Umbutu" in South Africa. He started a 5-year experiment in 2009 of not spending money, though he raises it, not for himself, but for good causes.

Sonja Kruseproving "Umbutu", in South Africa. She wandered without money for about a year and discontinued it to do other grand things with her life. Öff Öff Jürgen Wagnerin Germany. Theologian living moneyless (I hope to update about him when I know more).

"My Gratis is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in Weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my Weaknesses"

--Apostle Paul

Faqr Fakhri

"Poverty is my Pride."

--Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh

"My sermons are criticized by certain audiences.

They say that my sermons are hollow, not holy.

I agree with them because I myself am not holy.

The Buddha's teaching guides people

to the place where there is nothing special...

People often misunderstand faith

as kind of ecstasy of intoxication...

True faith is sobering up from such intoxication."

--Kodo Sawaki ("Homeless Kodo")

I've been living without a cent to my name since the autumn of 2000 (with a month's exception during my first year). I don't use or accept money or conscious barter, and I don't take food stamps or other government dole (not that I think those things are bad or that those who use them are in any way inferior).

And, after years of doing this, to my joy, I've learned there are other people in the world doing the same.

Why?

I simply got tired of acknowledging as real

this most common world-wide belief called money!
I simply got tired of being unreal.
Money is one of those intriguing things

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can’t have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man’s worth couldn’t be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorney or politicians, therefore we couldn’t cheat. We were in a really bad way before the white man came, and I don’t know how we managed to get along without the basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.

Peace Pilgrim: Because I talk about spiritual truth, and spiritual truth should never be sold - those who sell it injure themselves spiritually....

"Those who attempt to buy spiritual truth are attempting to get it before they are ready. In this wonderfully well-ordered universe, when they are ready it will be given.

Non-possession is allied to non-stealing. A thing not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified as stolen property, if we possess it without needingit.Possession implies provision for the future. A seeker after Truth, a follower of the law of Love, cannot hold anything against tomorrow. God never stores for the morrow. He never creates more than what is strictly needed for the moment. If, therefore, we repose faith in His Providence, we should rest assured that He will give us every day our daily bread, meaning everything that we require.... Our ignorance or negligence of the Divine Law, which gives to man from day to day his daily bread and no more, has given rise to inequalities with all the miseries attendant upon them. The rich have superfluous store of things which they do not need and which are, therefore, neglected and wasted, while millions are starved to death for want of sustenance.

Those who wish to make room for the Lord must find pleasure not in private, but in common property…. Redouble your charity. For, on account of the things which each one of us possesses singly, wars exist, hatreds, discords, strifes among human beings, tumults, dissensions, scandals, sins, injustices, and murders. On what account? On account of those things which each of us possesses singly. Do we fight over the things we possess in common? We inhale this air in common with others, we all see the sun in common. Blessed therefore are those who make room for the Lord, so as not to take pleasure in private property. Let us therefore abstain from the possessions of private property—or from the love of it, if we cannot abstain from possession—and let us make room for the Lord.

--Saint Augustine(354–430 CE) [Commentary on Psalm 131], unanimous with virtually all the early church fathers & mothers. Is this the same religion as what passes itself off as Christianity today? Augustine is beloved (in word) by both Evangelicals and Catholics. Augustine gave up his possessions to the poor.

Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisonedand the last fish has been caught,

will we realize that we can't eat money.

-- CreeProverb

I am poor and naked but I am the chief of a nation. We do not want

riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.

--Red Cloud, Oglala Sioux

This
is not about feeling guilty about past ancestors. This is not about
feeling guilty at all. Guilt accomplishes nothing. This is about
recognizing and acknowledging the mentality of our ancestors is just as
strong, if not stronger, within ourselves and our culture today. And
this is not about race. This genocidal mentality is called business. Business justifies anything. Recognize
and acknowledge, change our hearts and behavior,
and move on. And this is not about looking at the splinter in native
eyes (yawn... yeah, some natives had wars and skirmishes with each
other), but about looking at the lumber yard in our own. Did any
nomadic native tribe massacre whole populations or destroy their own
ecosystems we all depend upon, as our own business culture has done and
is doing, over and over?

In proportion as he Simplifies his Life, the Laws of the Universe will appear less complex, and Solitude will not be solitude, nor Poverty poverty, nor Weakness weakness.

--Henry David Thoreau

I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the God.

I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?

. . . .

I am that gadfly which God has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you...

. . . .

And that I am given to you by God is proved by this: - that if I had been like other men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years... exhorting you to regard virtue; this I say, would not be like human nature.

And had I gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in that:

but now, as you will perceive,

not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of anyone; they have no witness of that.

And I have a sufficient witness to the truth of what I say--my poverty.

--Socrates[Plato's Apology]

Never have We sent

an apostle to any nation

without the wealthy saying,

"We do not believe

the message you bring."

(Quran 34:34)

"Noservant can serve two masters,

for either he will hate the one and love the other,

or he will be devoted to the oneand despise the other.

You cannot work for God and money."

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money,

heard all these things, and they ridiculed Jesus.(Luke 16:13-14)

Better than ritual practice[abhyasa]

is knowledge[jnana, or gnosis];

Better than knowledge[jnana]

is concentration [dhyana, or zen];

Better than concentration is renunciation of the reward of all action,

from which directly issues Peace.

(Bhagavad Gita 12:12)

And what is money

but the representation of

the reward of action?

The use of money, talent, cleverness to gain power or deriving power from any use of these is evil. But there is a power which is in no way related to that power which is evil. This power is not to be bought through worship, prayers and self-denying or self-destructive meditations. All effort to become or to be must wholly, naturally, cease. Only then that power which is not evil, can be.